‘Then don’t hurt me again,’ Ally said, and stared at him in the darkness. Her words simple but honest, she watched as he closed his eyes in regret.
‘I never intended to hurt you, Ally. I just didn’t see how it could work. I didn’t want to lose our friendship…’
‘You nearly did,’ Ally said softly. ‘I couldn’t go through it again, Rory. Couldn’t be friends if you pushed me away again.’ Despite the intimacy, despite the gentleness of her words, there was a tiny warning ring to them. As he pulled her fiercely into his arms Ally knew that he had heeded it, knew as his lips searched for hers that he was affirming he understood, that if they crossed the line now there could be no going back, no pretending feelings hadn’t been hurt, for Ally could never forgive him twice.
His kiss was worth the wait, worth the pain, the familiar taste of him as he pressed his flesh against hers causing tiny ripples of pleasure to course through her, feeling his breath mingling with hers, just parting long enough for him to undress her. He slipped the T-shirt over her head as she lifted her arms and she was naked beside him, deliciously exposed. The desire in his eyes, the utter adoration that blazed from them as he gazed the length of her body told her she was beautiful enough for audacity, made her bold enough to undress him, to pull at the T-shirt and expose the flesh she had craved for so long, to tug at his boxers and reveal the man who had guiltily invaded her dreams for three long years now. And her memory hadn’t done him justice. His body was more beautiful than she’d even allowed herself to remember, but there was a thrill of familiarity as tentative fingers dusted the dark hairs of his chest, felt the solid muscle beneath her touch. And her lips could only relish him, taste the salty velvet of his skin. Her desire was overwhelming now as Rory took control, took her slender body in his arms, his lips, his tongue exploring her, tasting her, savouring her. The ecstasy of being held by someone as strong and as male as Rory was one of life’s all-time pleasures that reared again as if it had never been buried. His maleness only enhanced her femininity and she revelled in it, enjoying the comparative fragility of her own body as his hands tenderly explored it, fingers tracing the long slender length of her spine, his lips, his tongue working the shadows of her neck along her shoulder and her legs wrapped around his. His size was only rivalled by his tenderness. ‘Oh, Ally,’ he murmured over and over into her hair.
And she answered him with her body, arching herself towards him, and it couldn’t be too quick or too soon when she’d waited for him so long. She was so warm and inviting and ready, so eager for him to take her that as he slipped inside her needy warmth, loved her as only Rory ever could. It was Ally who lost control first, feeling the swell of him inside her, his athletic frame hovering over her as he glided deep within, her legs dragging him in deeper, harder, and she knew he didn’t want to hurt her, but she also knew that he couldn’t. The passion was overriding now as he rocked deep within her, her fingers digging into his shoulders, her pelvis tipping into his, and it was Ally attempting to cry out his name as he filled her. Her orgasm was so intense that even speech failed her. Her whole body shuddered as he shivered deep inside her, the last throes of her orgasm so intense her eyes shot open and she stared deep into his, the moment so intimate, so tender she needed to see him, needed to hold his gaze as she surrendered. They needed to witness this together.
‘Do you have any idea how much I’ve missed you?’ It was Rory who spoke first, Rory pulling her out of her delicious post-coital stupor and into beautiful reality.
‘No.’ Lying in his arms, she shook her head against his chest, felt the weight of his lips as he kissed the top of her head. Cocooned in love, all she wanted to do was sleep, to lie in Rory’s arms and wait for tomorrow, wait to experience the one thing that so far they hadn’t.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘MORNING.’ Green eyes were welcoming her, tiny lines fanning at the sides of his eyes as he welcomed her to a new day, a new life with Rory by her side. The one thing that had been missing from her dreams finally materialised—no suitcase in the hall, no air ticket on the dresser, no hasty exit before she woke up, just Rory in bed beside her. And it was like saying goodbye to a recurring nightmare and slipping into a dream.
‘You’re still here?’
‘Still here,’ Rory said. ‘Feel.’
So she did, but not where he’d intended, and Rory was as taken aback as he was delighted by her boldness. Their hazy, languorous, early morning love-making was like a delicious second course—appetites quenched by the entrée and more time now to relish the main course, bodies warm and relaxed from a night in each other’s arms, the rumpled bed…
‘Sorry.’ Reaching out for his pager, Rory squinted at the offending item, before picking up the phone and dialling the hospital. Realising he was probably going to be called in, Ally went to get out of bed to make coffee, but Rory caught her wrist and pulled her back as he concluded the conversation and put down the phone.
‘I’m expecting twins!’
‘Congratulations.’ Ally grinned—pinching his line. ‘I’ll go and make some coffee while you have a shower.’
‘Rinska’s there.’ Rory pulled her back down beside him. ‘And there’s a long way to go yet. Now, where were we?’
Thankfully the maternity unit was impossibly busy when Ally arrived for her shift—thankfully, because it kept people from asking why someone who should be so depressed was hard pushed to keep the smile from her face.
Win waylaid her the second she arrived, her lined face filled with concern. ‘How are you, love? Jess told me that poor old Sheba wasn’t well and that you had to have her put down.’
‘I did.’ Ally blew her fringe into the air, wondering how one could feel so deliriously happy and so sad at the same time. ‘But it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. She was so old, I knew it had to be done and the vet was terribly kind—everyone’s been great really. How are you doing, Win?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Win admitted. ‘I feel a bit like Sheba myself—everyone’s being terribly kind, but I know they think I’m too old for the place. My supervisor’s asked to talk with me at ten this morning. No doubt I’m about to get my marching orders.’
‘They can’t just sack you.’
‘No, but apparently they can send me down to A and E. I’ve been really pushing myself to do the forty-hour weeks because I don’t want to let the job go, and then yesterday I got a call telling me to go down to the accident unit and help out after my lunch-break. In thirty years I’ve never left this ward.’
‘Did you go?’ Ally asked, looking at Win’s tired, worried face and wishing she could do something more to help.
‘No.’ Win shook her head. ‘Dr Rory told me to stay put and went down and spoke to the supervisor himself. No doubt that’s why I’m being called in for a little chat this morning. I know he meant well, but he’s not the one who’s going to cop it today.’
‘Good luck.’ Ally gave a sympathetic grimace, wishing there was more she could say. ‘Let me know how you get on.’
‘How are you feeling?’ Jess asked, making a space for Ally as she came in to take the handover.
‘Better,’Ally admitted. ‘I was just saying to Win that I was a wreck yesterday, but to tell you the truth, I’ve been dreading it for so long now, once it happened it was almost a relief. I’m going to miss her like crazy but I really think she was kind of holding on just to keep me happy. I know it was her time.’
‘You’ll still have your moments,’ Jess warned, and Ally nodded, her nose reddening as she did just that—thought about Sheba who’d patiently listened to each and every instalment of Ally’s love life, only to miss out on the final episode.
Maybe she knew, Ally consoled herself, clicking on her pen as handover started. Maybe once Rory had come back, Sheba had somehow felt she could leave.
‘Ally, Jess.’ Vivien looked over at the two women. ‘If you can cover delivery, please. It’s pretty full on in there this morning so take the student Marcus with yo
u. There are three women labouring at the moment and one set of identical twins about to be delivered—I think Marcus should see that. We’ve also had a call from Fiona Anderson. She’s in first-stage labour and is making her way in to us shortly.’
‘Finally!’ Ally grinned. ‘How are we for beds?’
‘A bit tight,’ Vivien replied. ‘Though there should be a few discharges this morning and hopefully we won’t get too many more in, but if we do, we’re just going to have to shuffle.’
‘Twins!’ Ally beamed, heading over to the delivery unit with Jess and Marcus and taking a more detailed handover from the midwife in charge. They introduced themselves to the patients and relatives, and read through the patients’ charts that mapped out the progress of each woman’s labour.
As they arrived in Louise Williams’s room it was a scene of quiet activity. Rinska was performing the delivery as Rory supervised closely. They were already gowned up and completely focused on the task in hand and Ally neither expected nor received a smile from the man who had left her bed that morning. She wouldn’t have had it any other way—the patient and her precious babies rightly demanded all his attention. The paediatrician was pulling up various drugs by one of the two cots that were being warmed on the other side of the delivery room as an anaesthetist stood by. Even though, with the rise in IVF babies, twins were becoming a more regular occurrence, they still carried a higher risk of complications, hence the increase in staff for this delivery. Louise’s double miracle had nothing to do with in vitro fertilization though—identical twins were a natural and sporadic phenomenon and also very exciting!
‘I might hang around for this one.’ Bella, the night midwife, smiled. ‘Louise has been an absolute delight and she’s so close now. The second baby is breech…’
‘Breech!’ Marcus said, startled by the information, but Bella gave a reassuring smile. ‘The second baby often is with twins, but it normally doesn’t cause a problem. It will be nice for you to see an easy breech birth and get to grips with the mechanics before you have to witness a more difficult one. Anyway, we’ve got Rory and Rinska in here so I’m sure it’s all going to go well. I’ll go and see how Mum’s doing.’
Jess went off to check the equipment and help the paediatrician and anaesthetist, leaving Ally with a nervous Marcus.
‘Identification is especially important with twins, and particularly when they’re identical,’ Ally said, showing Marcus the two neat sets of charts labelled twin one and twin two. ‘These name tags will have been checked with Mum and as soon as the first baby is born the baby will have a name tag put on.’
‘They always do,’ Marcus said.
‘Before the cord’s cut in this case,’ Ally said to her student. ‘There may well be a distinguishing feature—one might just be bigger than the other—but there’s nothing worse that mixing up babies.’ Opening a small container, Ally smiled as Marcus frowned at the contents.
‘Nail varnish?’
‘Cherry-red nail varnish,’ Ally corrected. ‘Each hospital has their own methods, but here we paint the first baby’s big toe with nail varnish, with the mum’s consent, of course. There’s no chance of it slipping off, as name tags sometimes do, and this will last for days, weeks even, giving Mum plenty of time to be able to tell her twins apart without panicking that she’s mixed them up.’
‘Does that really happen?’ Marcus asked dubiously. ‘I read that the mother can always tell which one’s which.’
‘That’s what the books say.’ ‘Ally smiled. And, yes, normally Mum can soon tell them apart. But what the books don’t take into account is that at five a.m. after an exhausting night up with her babies and in a darkened room, she may well get confused. This way she can relax a bit. Remember that Mum’s hopefully going to have a stream of relatives lining up to help with feeds and changes and this way all they have to do is check a toe to know which one they just fed and changed. It helps the staff, too!’
‘It makes sense,’ Marcus agreed, warming to the logic.
‘Ally.’ One of the night staff, on her way home, popped her head around the door and, yawning, said, ‘Fiona Anderson’s just arrived.’
‘Thanks.’ Thrilled that Fiona was here and keen to be a part of her labour, Ally also felt reluctance to leave this imminent delivery, but as Jess was in the thick of things now and Bella had already offered to stay on for the birth, Ally had no choice but to go.
‘Morning, Fiona. Morning, Mark. You’re finally here!’
‘Finally,’ Fiona groaned, leaning up against the wall as another contraction took over. Ally waited patiently, unobtrusively timing the contraction with the clock on the wall and gently placing her hand on Fiona’s stomach to feel how strong it was.
‘How far apart are they?’ Ally asked when Fiona straightened up again. ‘They feel pretty strong.’
‘They are,’ Fiona agreed, ‘and they’re coming every four or five minutes. I thought I’d want to be at home for ages, but when the pain really kicked in the only place I wanted to be was here.’
Sometimes women in early labour, especially first-time mums, were kept on the ward until their labour was rather more advanced, but, given the closeness of the contractions and the fact that the ward was pretty full, Ally guided Fiona through to one of the vacant delivery suites, showing her the bathroom and the various switches and gadgets that she would soon be familiar with.
‘This is a nice room—with views!’ Fiona added, taking in the gorgeous ocean view.
‘Amazing, isn’t it?’Ally smiled. ‘And something nice and calming to focus on when you’re having a contraction. If it gets too bright we can pull the curtains. I’m just going to have a quick listen to the baby’s heartbeat if I may,’ Ally said. ‘This is called a Doppler.’
‘I saw that in class.’ Fiona nodded, lifting up her T-shirt as Ally squirted some cold jelly on her stomach and quickly picked up the reassuring sounds of the baby’s heartbeat.
‘Nice and regular,’Ally said. ‘I’ll check it more thoroughly once you’re undressed, but for now everything sounds fine. Now, this is the call bell—use it whenever you want. If it isn’t urgent, just press it once and we’ll get to you just as soon as we can—we’ve got quite a few mums labouring at the moment so we’re pretty busy.’
‘It sounds it!’ Fiona winced as a rather earsplitting scream filled the entire delivery unit. Then Ally watched as Fiona’s terrified face broke into a smile as, just seconds later, the lusty sounds of a newborn filled the room. ‘Is that a baby just been born?’
‘It is.’ Ally nodded, and even though she was completely calm and her face gave nothing away, Ally was on high alert now, hoping that twin two would do just as well, mindful that it was a breech delivery and that at any moment she could be summoned to assist. With one ear on suite one and the other on her new patient, Ally multi-tasked as easily as breathing. ‘Like I said, just press it once, but if you need someone quickly, you or Mark are to press it three times and we’ll come straight away.’
‘Got it,’ Fiona said, bending over as another contraction hit.
Ally glanced back up at the clock wall. ‘They’re pretty close together.’Ally gave a smile and encouraged her patient to breathe through the pain, reminding her of the methods she’d taught her in class. ‘That’s the way,’ Ally said in gentle voice. ‘Breathe out slowly—you’re doing so well.’ Once the contraction was over Ally dealt with the practicalities. ‘Why don’t you get into something more comfortable and then I’ll come and check on you and the baby and see how you’re both doing? Are you wearing your own clothes or would you like a hospital gown?’
‘A gown, please.’
‘Good choice,’ Ally agreed, pulling a gown out of the cupboard and handing it to Mark. ‘OK, if you give Fiona a hand to get changed, I’ll go and grab all the notes and paperwork and we can get things moving for you.’ She pulled a rocking chair out from the wall and turned it towards the window. ‘Do you remember how I said in class that rocking often helps…?
’ Her voice trailed off for a moment as twin one’s cries were joined by twin two’s and Ally let out a small relieved breath.
‘Twins,’ she explained as Fiona frowned, but it wasn’t the fact that it was two babies crying that was concerning Fiona. Instead, it was the fact that another contraction was starting. She lowered herself into the chair, rocking tentatively at first and then picking up speed as the pain intensified. Ally stood quietly, watching Fiona’s closed eyes, not wanting to interrupt her.
‘That helps!’ Fiona blinked in surprise. ‘That really helps!’
‘Enjoy!’ Ally said, leaving her patient to get into a gown. But instead of heading straight to the cupboard to collect the paperwork, she popped into delivery suite one, where the sound of two lusty cries was filling the air.
‘Boys.’ Jess beamed. ‘And they’re absolutely gorgeous.’
‘Oh, my goodness.’ Ally blinked. Clearly they were doing well, because the paediatrician and anaesthetist had already gone and the newborns were wrapped in two bunny rugs and had been placed side by side in just one of the heated cots as Rory delivered the single placenta that had nourished them through the pregnancy. Facing each other, their two blond heads were touching. ‘They’re like two peas in a pod.’
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